By Natalie Thomas
MYKOLAIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – A Russian rocket hit the regional administration building in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv on Tuesday, trapping 11 people under the rubble, the local governor Vitaliy Kim said.
An image showed a large hole in the side of the building. On Tuesday, Reuters witnesses saw the destruction from a distance and ambulances and fire engines heading to the scene. The area was cordoned off by Ukrainian authorities.
Russian forces have attacked Ukraine’s southern ports including Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Mariupol as they try to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and establish a land corridor from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized in 2014.
“They destroyed half of the building, got into my office,” Kim said. “The entire supply of IQOS (electronic cigarettes) was lost.”
“Most (people) miraculously escaped – eight civilians are now under the rubble and we hope that (they) will be pulled out,” he said, adding three military personnel were also trapped.
Kim said there was an upside to the strike – it suggested Russia had given up trying to take over the city.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbour. It denies targeting civilians. Ukraine and the West say Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked war.
(Reporting by Natalie Thomas and Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
